Thursday, September 20, 2012

Squire Western (Hunter/wealthy squire who owns neighbouring estate to
Squire Allworthy, a simpleton who wants to marry his daughter Sophia to Squire
Allworthy’s heir, first Blifil and then Jones, against her will, with quite
violent, if not physically, means).

From the source:

MRS. WESTERN had been engaged abroad all that
day. The squire met her at her return home; and when she enquired after Sophia,
he acquainted her that he had secured her safe enough. “She is locked up in
chamber,” cries he, “and Honour keeps the key.”

As his looks were full of prodigious wisdom and
sagacity when he gave his sister this information, it is probable he expected
much applause from her for what he had done; but how was he disappointed when,
with a most disdainful aspect, she cried, “Sure, brother, you are the weakest of
all men. Why will you not confide in me for the management of my niece? Why will
you interpose? You have now undone all that I have been spending my breath in
order to bring about. While I have been endeavouring to fill her mind with
maxims of prudence, you have been provoking her to reject them. English women,
brother, I thank heaven, are no slaves. We are not to be locked up like the
Spanish and Italian wives. We have as good a right to liberty as yourselves. We
are to be convinced by reason and persuasion only, and not governed by force. I
have seen the world, brother, and know what arguments to make use of; and if
your folly had not prevented me, should have prevailed with her to form her
conduct by those rules of prudence and discretion which I formerly taught her.”

“To be sure,” said the squire, “I am always in
the wrong.”

“Brother,” answered the lady, “you are not in the
wrong, unless when you meddle with matters beyond your knowledge. You must agree
that I have seen most of the world; and happy had it been for my niece if she
had not been taken from under my care. It is by living at home with you that she
hath learnt romantic notions of love and nonsense.”

“You don’t imagine, I hope,” cries the squire,
“that I have taught her any such things.”

“D—n Milton!” answered the squire: “if he had the
impudence to say so to my face, I’d lend him a douse, thof he was never so great
a man. Patience! An you come to that, sister, I have more occasion of patience,
to be used like an overgrown schoolboy, as I am by you. Do you think no one hath
any understanding, unless he hath been about at court? Pox! the world is come to
a fine pass indeed, if we are all fools, except a parcel of roundheads and
Hanover rats. Pox! I hope the times are a coming when we shall make fools of
them, and every man shall enjoy his own. That’s all, sister; and every man shall
enjoy his own. I hope to zee it, sister, before the Hanover rats have eat up all
our corn, and left us nothing but turneps to feed upon.”

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Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
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